Allen Yonghoon Kim, a savory sous chef, works in the kitchen at Gotham restaurant on Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, in New York. When COVID-19 tore through the United States in March 2020, the recession it caused was brutal yet brief. Yet for much of 2021, the recovery was undermined by new threats: A surge in inflation that shrank the value of paychecks, hurt the least advantaged Americans most and posed a political threat to President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress. (Brittainy Newman/AP)
